


Leia's Nightmare

by sparklight



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Sibling Bonding, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4270686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after her nineteenth birthday, Leia starts having a nightmare that changes very little through the years and stays with her for a very long time. But she doesn't need to deal with it all alone, not even in the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leia's Nightmare

It always starts the same.

The door of her cell gaping open, a stark abyss to the blinding brightness turning the sharp, dark lines and planes of the cell as white as her dress. She doesn't want to leave. She _can't_ leave, she needs to wait for the rescue she _knows_ will come...

But it doesn't, and the opening offered by the open door is too tempting, drives her to stand up, to creep along the walls and up the stairs and peek out.

The corridor is empty, awash in red emergency lighting, and suddenly she's standing in the corridor itself, the cell door is closed and locked and she _needs to get back in_. She bangs on it, tries to hack the lock, but it's implacable.

Then comes the noise.

Either it's the low, thrumming hum of repulsors accompanied by piercing beeping, and the red light caresses the black globe of the interrogation droid.

Or it's the even, implacable whoosh of respirator breathing, followed by the metal grating clanging with the steps of Darth Vader slowly walking down the corridor towards her.

Sometimes it's both.

This time, it's both.

But she keeps her ground, nails biting into the palms of her hands because this is _infinitely_ better than what awaits... Her heart beats like a scream in her head, through her body, and the needle is almost close enough to pierce the cloth and skin covering her arm, the glove reaching for her almost about to close about the other arm---

She runs.

There's screaming as she runs down the corridor, screaming as she takes the lift, trying to get lost in the long, winding corridors of the Death Star. Screaming for forgiveness, because she's not strong enough to let him torture her, not strong enough to stand still and let the drug worm itself through her brain once again, pushing at her thoughts and making them bubbly and slip through her fingers like sand while she tries to keep any vital information from reaching her tongue.

She runs, but the droid or Vader are _always_ at the end of the corridor she turns down through, forcing her to turn back, choose another corridor and the red light washes over her in flickering stretches that makes her body ache. When she finally stumbles, the wall she falls against opens up, offering no support and the room beyond is pitch black.

Pitch black but for the wide, wide viewport framing a perfect blue marble veiled in white.

There's boots in her vision and she scrambles upright, staring into the pale, pale eyes glittering in the light reflected into the room from Alderaan's sun.

This time, she tosses herself at him, at that hated, sharp-boned face that hardly has enough flesh and skin to hide the skull beneath and she _claws at him_ \---

And staggers on air as Tarkin steps around her as if she hadn't just attempted to tear into his face, into his eyes. The smile on his face is not his own but belongs on a face sunken into its own pallid, putrid rolls, but then the impression of yellow eyes is gone and there is only Tarkin here. Like there always has been. No one but the man who condemned her world...

"Would you prefer another target, a military target, Princess?" he's not pressing, is not yelling - no, he's _smiling_ , sharp and mocking as she trembles, now rooted to the spot and she... just...

Sometimes, she says nothing.

Nothing at all in the hope that it will delay the inevitable end. 

Sometimes she says exactly what she did when this actually happened, and Tarkin almost looks _disappointed_.

Sometimes - like this time - she yells out every single base the Alliance has ever had, scrambling even for the smallest, temporary outpost to fling at him, _anything_ to keep him from turning away, from smiling that sickly-pleased smirk and gesture with a flick in the air.

"I knew you could be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready."

The scream in her ears isn't her own.

The flash of green is a lightning strike, and Alderaan explodes in slow motion, debris that never flew this close to the Death Star's viewport bounce against it as the scream morphs into distinct voices.

Her papa, recriminating her for giving in, for revealing the Alliance's secrets.

Her mama, asking her why she didn't _warn them_ , why she wasn't right there with them.

Millions of voices yelling accusations, wordless nothings of pure pain and above it all hovers Tarkin's last, condemning words; _you're far too trusting_.

***

Four days since the victory against the Empire. 

Four days since the Death Star was destroyed.

Leia wandered through corridors overflowing with crates and equipment yet to be packed as they made ready to evacuate. They wouldn't leave just yet, but Yavin was one of their largest bases so far and as such would take longer to prepare to leave, so things were already in motion.

Head thumping emptily in the wake of the nightmare, Leia didn't have a plan for where she was going. She just needed to _walk_ , hoping the motion would chase away the echo of accusations in her head. She stopped at a balcony, the bloated clouds covering the sky threatening rain and the wind making the trees sing.

Shivering, Leia brushed her arms, shoulders, but there were no hands on them, no dark restraint that unsettlingly enough felt like support. It made her want to throw up; how could Vader, the man who had tortured her, ever feel like _support_?

It was _his fault_ \---

Tilting her head back, eyes screwed shut, Leia took a breath, her nails biting into her palms.

No.

It wasn't.

Yes, it was Vader's fault she had been on the Death Star at all, Vader's fault the _Tantive IV_ was nothing but dust, Vader's fault its crew was dead, Vader's fault she still trembled with remembered pain and her muscles sometimes cramped and she got headaches. The latter two of which the medidroids had assured her would abate in time. 

But it wasn't Darth Vader's fault Alderaan was gone.

It was...

 _You may fire when ready_.

That sharp, smiling voice.

 _You're far too trusting_.

Her jaw ached and Leia tried to relax, tried to breathe.

She was---

"Leia?" Luke came up beside her, a slow, hesitant warmth that bled past the barrier she was trying to keep in place and she wanted to turn around and yell at him to _go away_ , to please stay, to hug her, to let her punch him...

"Good morning, Luke. I hope you slept well?" her voice didn't waver, but his blue eyes - not at all like Tarkin's, being infinitely more gentle - narrowed in concern anyway and she almost fled, then. Almost.

"Yeah. Are you..."

Don't say it. Just don't say it, she thought as she finally turned to glance up at him, and couldn't manage a smile at all.

"I've never seen this many clouds," Luke said instead, turning to look up at the threatening sky above. A moment later there was an arm around her shoulders, settling there slowly enough she could easily step away from it and she...

Didn't step away.

"Probably going to rain." She couldn't manage more than a whisper, but her voice didn't crack and she didn't tremble... she did, however, allow herself to relax into the presence beside her, and she wasn't even sure _why_. But Luke wasn't demanding anything; the weight of his arm around her shoulders was support, yes, but came with nothing else but exactly that.

" _Rain_?" There was stunned, childish wonder in his voice, and finally Leia smiled, however small it was, and leaned her head against his shoulder as if she hadn't met him just a few days ago, as if she knew him better than she did...

The strange thing was, it felt like she _did_ know him better than she reasonably could from such a short time since she met him, and while that probably should have her fleeing, instead it just felt...

Right.

Thunder ripped across the sky, close and deep enough to make the stones of the temple tremble, and Luke's arm around her tightened as he stared, wide-eyed, up at the sky as it flickered with light.

The blue ice in her mind was tentatively lit by soft green, not at all like the harsh light of the Death Star's laser, and it crept down, cracked the ice with its gentle heat. Leia glanced from the clouds to Luke's face as the sky suddenly opened up with another mind-splitting peal of thunder and lightning, and smiled again at the nearly reverent expression that came over Luke's face.

Laughing, he suddenly pulled away from her, grabbed her hand and pulled her out onto the balcony.

" _Luke_!" her shriek wasn't nearly as angry as it should have been, her heels didn't dig in as firmly as they could have, and she laughed (surprised when it came out of her) when he threw his arms out and tipped his head back to catch the deluge, mouth open, tongue out.

They were both already soaked.

"You're going to _drown yourself_!"

"Not a bad way to go!" He tilted his head back to grin down at her, and as another rattling scream of thunder tore through them and lightning flashed above them, Leia let that bright green warmth and the rain and the noise wash away the screams and the smug echoes of a dead man whispering in her dreams.


End file.
